Russia halt on Aleppo raids ‘to be extended’

MOSCOW said on Tuesday Russian and Syrian warplanes have not conducted any airstrikes on the city of Aleppo for the last seven days and are upholding a moratorium on bombing.

“All flights by Russian and Syrian air forces have been completely halted in a 10-kilometre zone around Aleppo since October 18,” senior military official Sergei Rudskoi said at a briefing. “The moratorium on airstrikes by Russian and Syrian planes around the city will be extended,” he added, without specifying a timeframe.

A so-called “humanitarian pause” declared by Damascus and Moscow ran out at 1600 GMT on Saturday, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported there were airstrikes afterwards against the opposition-controlled district of Sheikh Saeed. Russia’s defence spokesman Igor Konashenskov said earlier that six passages for civilians to leave rebel-held eastern Aleppo were still functioning and that 48 women and children left late Monday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday urged the United Nations to do more to facilitate the evacuation of the injured from the battered city.

In a phone conversation with his German counterpart FrankWalter Steinmeier, Lavrov “stressed that representatives of the UN’s humanitarian agencies should act in a more resolute manner to remove the obstacles” preventing aid from getting in to eastern Aleppo and those injured from getting out, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.